Dingus

My own take on things is that it does make a very slight difference to the feel of the string but so little that I still questioning whether it is actually real or imagined , and as ever , it probably makes a bigger difference on some basses than others . I am perfectly willing to believe it doesent make any real difference , but then there is a chorus of opinion from people who seem know what they are talking about that says it does give a tighter feel , be that tension or compliance . Mike Lull uses through - body stringing just for the low B string on his five strings to tighten it up a bit , and plenty of other manufacturers swear by thorugh. - body stringing for the same reason . Bass Player Magazine seem admant that it makes a difference too , and who am I to disagree with them ?

Not at all keen on that Sledge finish myself . Just looks like an excuse to charge you a lot more money for what is essentially a grey finish that allegedly goes different colours ( big deal ) . Would love to try a new Sabre , though .

Do people find stringing through the body really does give more tension ( or at least a tighter feel ) than through the back of the bridge on basses that have both options ? I have been experimenting with this myself recently and I have reached the stage where I am not sure whether I am just imagining more tension when strung through the body because I have read that this is the case , or if in fact it does make the strings feel tighter . What have you found ?

[quote name='Ziphoblat' timestamp='1368883975' post='2082638'] I believe the point about the sweet-spot is that it's usually suggested to be a specific point relative to the part of string that's actually vibrating, which obviously changes in length depending on where you are on the fretboard. [/quote] I understand that , and that is exactly the point that I am taking issue with . Of course the relative length of the string will change , but the practical reality is that in effect the sweetspot stays fairly constant .

[quote name='geoffbyrne' timestamp='1368884666' post='2082647'] Errrrrr - explain that term please? G. [/quote] It means you can take it for granted that it was understood by whoever made the decision where to put the pickup that the player would be fretting notes and changing the speaking length of the string .

[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1368881217' post='2082593'] Surely the so-called sweetspot moves every time you fret a note? [/quote] [quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1368881827' post='2082608'] This. [/quote] In effect , no it doesn't . All pickups are placed in a static position . Where that position is has a profound effect on the overall sound coming from the bass . The variable speaking length of the string is a given constant , and the pickup position gives a similar tonal character to notes played anywhere along the string , regardless . In reality , you have to put the pickup somewhere and some spots are sweeter than others .

The so- called sweetspot is different because there are in effect different kinds of sweetness . A Precision wouldn't sound the same with its' pickup in the Musicman Stingray position and vice versa .

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1368812108' post='2081916'] Assisting pizza delivery. [/quote] Possible , but only with proper supervision .

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1368794714' post='2081603'] Delivering pizzas. [/quote] [i]Way [/i]too much responsibility .

[quote name='Dr.Dave' timestamp='1337877996' post='1666919'] for me - the best bass solo's the one the player thought about doing and then figured the song would be better off without it!! I like the idea of essential bass parts in songs rather than solo's in the sense I think we mean solo. For instance - who can imagine the change in the middle of Fleetwood Mac's 'Chain' without McVie's part? Who doesn't look forward to the four 'solo'd' bass notes in 'Crazy little Thing called Love'? Who can no admire Macca making a very average 'Silly Love Songs' into a far better song by lifting it with his bass line. That's what it's about - listen to your song and make it better. [/quote] Exactly this in at least 90% of cases . Very few solos can beat a good " hook "bassline , which is surely far more of a true test of a bass player's skills . Look at players like James Jamerson and Joe Osborn - everything they played was in effect as important and as prominent as a solo , because it was so integral to the song as a whole .

[quote name='RandomBass' timestamp='1368774023' post='2081228'] Where's a drummer when you need one? [/quote] Usually attending Adult Literacy classes or at a job paying minimum wage , in my experience .

Just had look at the YT footage . I would have thought that was a band landlords up in the North East would welcome . Besides which ,[u] sex sells [/u].

... and anyway , being a sexual deviant is a prerequisite for being in most bands . ( And being a disc jockey , apparently .)

Do you have any video footage of your supposedly lewd act ?m I am certainly willing to give you the benefit of my expertise and experience in the field of going a bit too far for most people , but I need to see some of this degrading filth with my own two eyes , preferably while Mrs Dingus is still out at the supermarket .

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1368721391' post='2080725'] Haha, I still have a stack of Kerrang! and Raw magazines from the late 80s-early 90s, and they bring back all kinds of great memories, musical and otherwise. There are some articles in them that puzzle me now, because they are pervaded with a sexist attitude which should have been in the dustbin of history even by then - but we're talking about heavy metal, after all... I don't think I could ever eBay those mags. With the mag came awesome, large posters too - and I've grown old with those bands, most of whom are only a little older than me [/quote] I distinctly remember buying the first ever copy of Kerrang ! with Angus Young on the cover . You should have seen the looks local newsagents gave me when I asked if they had a a copy of Kerrang ! " A copy of what ? !!! " Quite an unusual name for a magazine if you have never heard of it before . Buying a copy of Busty Slags Bending Over magazine would have been far less embarassing , by comparison .

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1368718090' post='2080665'] Exactly! I was learning little bits of Larry Coryell and Al Di Meola without knowing what the f*** it was supposed to sound like. That sort of thing gives you some personality in your playing, little nuggets of technique and phrases and chords that you learn from a page, and if you get excited by them you start expanding on them based on what pleases your ears, a note here, a space there ... I got much more pleasure from reading GP the other night than most of the stuff I read on the web. [/quote] [quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1368718390' post='2080670'] I have been very disappointed with a lot of records as a result of this phenomenon. Also I've liked stuff i expected to hate, so it's quite balanced. Sadly, seeing the name of a band that reminds you of being 13, and you are convinced you were into sometimes leads you to buy records you otherwise wouldn't. Especially when it turns out you had never heard them and just read about them in a magazine and thought they sounded like the sort of thing you'd like. Al Di Meola however, when I finally got my hands on his records, didn't really disappoint. Unlike the later mags that came with CDs of the stuff that was transcribed in them, that meant I knew what it sounded like before I threw my fingers at it, and came up with something completely wrong, but utterly sublime, and therefore mine, and totally original. Once you knew what it should sound like, those experiments vanished. [/quote] Whenever I pick up a bass , at some point I always play a little ditty which resulted from me trying to play the transcription of " Joe Frazier " by Jeff Berlin in the November 1983 issue of Guitar Player , despite having never heard it at the time . Needless to say , it bears so little resemblance to Jeff's version that I could put it out as a record and if Jeff sued me for copyright he wouldn't have a hope in hell of winning the case .

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1368717085' post='2080642'] I got all emotional reading it the other night too. I got very excited [/quote] One thing about reading Guitar Player back in those days was it was full of musicians and references to music that I had never actually heard . I used to read Jeff Berlin's Bass And Beyond column for years before I ever heard a record with him on ( I know some out there might see that as a blessing ...) , and so many other players were similaly unknown . It's easy to forget that nowadays you can read about a player or a piece of music and get on Youtube and be watching and / or listening to things within thirty seconds . In those days unless you had the money to buy expensive import records you were often left to imagine what these people sounded like , unless they were session musicians who had played on chart records you had heard this side of the Atlantic .

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1368709161' post='2080445'] I used to read Guitar Player and Musician magazines back in the '80s and '90s. I've lately been buying a few up on ebay from that period and reading old interviews with some of my favourite musicians. One I just got was Guitar Player from Feb 83 containing interviews with Zappa and a young Steve Vai who was in Zappa's band at the time. What has struck me is the sheer depth, length and quality of the interviews (combined, the Zappa and Vai interviews would take up a whole issue of BGM), the columns are amazing, and the general attention to detail - proofing seems to be excellent. The interviews are just magical to read, incredible knowledge to be gained, and they are so inspirational. Comparing these old mags to the current BGM or GP and BP, they just eclipse modern music player journalism. I have learned SOOOOO much just from this issue! I've just bought a bunch more and I can't wait to read them! EDIT: I bet this will delight someone on here! Jaco cover Guitar Player 1984! [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Guitar-Player-Magazine-August-1984-Jaco-Pastorius-/400442764812?pt=Magazines&hash=item5d3c3fae0c"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item5d3c3fae0c[/url] [/quote] Yes , yes , yes ! In the 1980's I used to get Guitar Player every month without fail and it was indeed written to a level that no magazines even aspire to nowadays . It was full of genuinely knowledge - expanding information and thought - provoking veiws , and I learnt [i]so much [/i]from reading it that I still think about today . And the adverts were a scintillating and sumptuous glimpse of a world of gear that I could only dream about at that time . I'm getting a bit emotional now . In the U.K we had International Musician And Recording World magazine , and that was pretty good too , as well as the gear pages in the back of Sounds , and that was probably the best all round music paper ever , in my opinion .

[quote name='BetaFunk' timestamp='1368657954' post='2080023'] In your Bernard Bouffant phase when you restrung your Stingray did you stand back and looking admiringly at it say 'because you're worth it'? [/quote] I would have done , had it not been for the fact that I suffer from low self - esteem and am not in fact " worth it " , or at least I dont think so .

[quote name='BetaFunk' timestamp='1368655294' post='2079990'] I was really looking forward to our history of Coiffure by one our learned BCers (or stating the obvious as is often the case) and just thought it might start with something like..............'The Mullett, unlike the Bouffant..........' I'm sure it would have ended with Fenders are overrated and you should have bought a Stingray though. [/quote] I bought a Stingray once but found it gave me too much frizz and sold it to a chav from Wolverhampton . And funnily enough , Bernard Boufant was once my pseudonym when I played on a record I didn't want to be associated with .

[quote name='BetaFunk' timestamp='1368648223' post='2079832'] I can see a history lesson of hairdressing through the ages coming. [/quote] You've spoilt that for me now . I was just preparing my post with photographic illustrations using snaps of my my past hairstyles , including a couple very close to those sported by Glenn Hughes . People might laugh at mullets now , but they definitely sounded good back in the '80's .

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1368646969' post='2079810'] My head So what you are saying is, there might be some extra winds, but that means more treble, which isn't what the big singles are known for, so there must be something else, but we don't know what? Why didn't you say so? [/quote] No , more winds usually means less treble extension , unless you do something to counteract that . Carey Nordstrand is a bit of wizard when it comes to bass pickup design , and I am not that electrically literate , so I can't really tell you what he has done , but it seems to work , and other pickup manufacturers want a slice of the pie he has created , so to speak .

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1368646266' post='2079785'] So it is a matter of stuffing a load more winds on to the pickup then? [/quote] Maybe they are overwound to some extent , but in pickup design the extra output you get from more winds has to be offset against the rolloff of high frequencies that usually results from that . The size of the magnets and bobbins in the pickups also has an effect on the tone and overall output of the pickup . Whatever Nordstrand have done with these pickups seems to have met with broad approval from bass players , hence other manufacturers such as Aguilar jumping on the bandwagon .

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1368644668' post='2079733'] Yes, but it still doesn't answer what is different about them. Technically, what are the difference between standard single coil, and soapbar single coil? [/quote] It does , Milton . Broadly speaking the soapbar single coils sound a bit more hefty ( for want of a better phrase ) than a regular single coil Jazz pickup . The first pickup on the market ( as far as I am aware , someone else may know better ) to cater to this gap in the market was the Nordstrand Big Single , which has turned out to be very popular . These pickups are Aguilar's attempt to have a rival pickup to that one . Here is the description of the Big Singles from Nordstrand's website : [b] big singles[/b] [b] single coil 4/5/6 string bass pickups[/b] These pickups are all about huge, full, loud, aggressive single coil tone. They use the same magnet layout as the Fat Stack, and the resultantly big coil is about as much single coil pickup that can be packaged in a soap-bar cover. This is the ultimate pickup for the Jazz Bass®-on-steroids tone purist! These pickups will fit as replacements for Bartolini™ P2 (5 string) and BC (4 string) pickups. Dimensions are 4.25" by 1.25" and 3.95" by 1.25" respectively. Standard spacing is 19mm ctc at the bridge.

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1368641174' post='2079661'] In any case, we still haven't answered my initial question - What's the point? What extra gubbins, if any, do they sneak inside the extra space? What advantage does it give? Why would they just fire a single coil into a bigger casing for the sake of being able to use it as a replacement pickup? [/quote] Have you read my post , Milty ? It answers exactly these questions .